Convergence Surgery

The last 2 weeks of my fellowship have been hectic and different as I got my first byline since arriving to the United States in Los Angeles Times.

As a result of my cooperation with the international desk in LA Times I wrote 2 posts in Babylon and Beyond blog on the newspaper’s website, this was a good chance for me to practice writing and aggregating information with links that can be useful to the reader.

Writing for LA Times readers about Egypt made me understand to a great extent the role of a foreign correspondent and how to write about issues that his readers may know about it for the first times even if these issues are so common where he is reporting.

Another useful discussion I had this week was during a personal meeting with Russ Stanton the editor in chief of LA Times who was the head of the innovation department in his newspaper before being promoted to his current job.

Stanton explained to me his vision about converting LA Times from a print only newsroom into a modern converged news center feeding both print and online editions of the paper.

The first step done by Stanton was to move the responsibility of web pages on latimes.com from the web team into the newspaper departments.

Every department is responsible for feeding their page online while the web team responsibility is to manage the content and organize the home page and spend more time on improving the website user’s experience.

For the first time in 25 years LA Times made a list of responsibilities of journalists working for it, the list included providing the website with news.

As a result of these steps taken by the editor in chief the LA Times laid off about 400 journalists and hired new 75 young ones, the main reason of this turnover was bringing fresh blood and people who are more familiar with technology and getting rid of those who refused to be part of the future by not learning the new required skills.

One other point explained to me by Stanton that change in newspapers requires the highest authority in the media organization to require this change and this simply means that new editors in chief should fully understand the requirements of the age of the web to be able to lead their newspapers into big change.

One of the other lessons I learned during the last 2 weeks was inside the photo desk in LA Times by working with Steve Straud the photo editor.

Picking photo for the newspaper from the wires feed or from the local photographers collections is a process that requires alot of time and scanning every single photo.

At the end of my first day i was able to understand values that make a good photo better than another and how big papers choose photos to publish in their first page.

Can big newspapers survive the ice age?

Since I arrived to USA I have noticed so many negative signs in the journalism industry because of the internet boom and new ways young people are used to get news and information.

Circulation of printed newspapers declines while the number of people who read news through the internet or cell phones or even using e-readers as ipad and kindle increased significantly.

The new developments in the journalism industry was the reason I made my decision to join the web department in Los Angeles Times where I spend the second part of my fellowship.

For 2 weeks I was able to be part of the daily operations in the home page of www.latimes.com, this enabled me to notice so many important steps done every day by the editorial team to keep the website of California’s largest newspaper in terms of circulation updated and in a good shape.
I learned that the web department has a number of journalists who works only for the website, the main task of the web team is to be involved in the operations of the print newspapers in order to make sure that the website is updated and has the latest details on different beats.

The web team representative attends the print edition’s meetings and make some requests from every department which is usually sending updates on every story that is developing during the day.

The web team faces some difficulties because in a big organization like Los Angeles Times not all people are ready to adapt to the new system and accept new tasks to send briefs to the website, especially if those people worked for all their lives in the print age.

Los Angeles Times stated its development plan taking the web into consideration about 3 years ago by starting innovation department.

The innovation department in the beginning used to have an office out of the news room in what looked like a laboratory for new products and services to develop.

The web department that includes a blogging team and all user generated content or interactivity or engaging readers services are now working under supervision from a web managing editor who is responsible to work with journalists on daily basis to make sure the newspaper is powerful online the same way it is in the print edition.

The online managing editor holds a weekly meeting with representatives from all departments involved in the web operations to discuss editorial projects that needs web designing and interactive ways of storytelling.

The most important lesson I learn during my stay in Los Angeles Times is how a big organization with a long history of traditional print media adapts to the internet age.

Los Angeles Times paid the price of the crisis facing the whole industry by laying off many people from their staff as this was the only solution to save the organization financially.

This situation will be repeated in Egypt in the next 2 years when the internet and mobile boom reaches its peak.

Usually in these conditions the big organizations suffer the most as they can’t limit their expenses with a huge number of people working for them while small size organizations survive as they can make drastic changes easier.

The revolutionary road we are into nowadays is similar to the impact of Ice Age on dinosaurs; all small creatures survived it after different form of adaptations while the huge reptiles failed.

Analyze this!

Another great opportunity to learn in Propublica was by meeting Scott Klein, the Editor of News Applications.

Klein’s responsibility in Propublica includes directing journalistic software development and multimedia production.

This long title might be a simplification for Klein’s main job which is sarcastically enough simplifying complicated issues investigated by Propublica as energy, financial and political stories into visual shapes making them easier to understand by the website visitors.

Klein and his team is responsible for creating projects like this http://www.propublica.org/tools which don’t only explain a complicated story but also gives the user or the reader the opportunity to interact and to choose how he wants to display a story or navigates the facts which is a process representing the future of journalism.

The Editor of news applications in Propublica introduced me to a free online application called many eyes that can be found at http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/.

Many eyes enables anyone to visualize data in different graphic forms, topics like economy, finance, energy, sports or even politics can be much easier by visualizing information.

It is much easier for the readers to understand a timetable full of numbers and variables in the form of a graphic than reading it and make an additional effort to analyze what they read.

Graphics are widely used in American and European newspapers and there are some news services that offer graphic as they send news and photos to their subscribers, however using online tools enables everyone to customize graphics and shapes for their data.

In this post I used the data available in Alfred Friendly Press Fellowships website regarding the distribution of fellows who participated before in the program.

A simple example that can’t be found in a graphic service and in the same time can give the reader the impact of AFPF on journalism worldwide in a glance.

Can nonprofit journalism be the future?

One of the best conversations I had during my fellowship in Proublica.org was an interview I had with Richard Tofel the general manager.

Tofel, the former assistant publisher of The Wall Street Journal, is responsible for all non-journalism operations in Propublica including finance and budgeting which were the main topics of my interview.

I tried to understand how Propublica as a nonprofit organization gets annual funding to continue its mission.

The funding usually starts with a big push from a big organization as the Sandler Foundation which made Paul Steiger the editor in chief dream come true in Propublica case.

When the project achieve success it can be able to start funding itself partially by generating advertisements and attract more donors in a rolling snow ball experience.

The organization spends all the money needed to produce the best quality journalism and the excess funds can be used as a deposit in the bank to generate more money.

Propublica sends 4 financial and administrative reports to its board members who have the right to comment or make changes which is something rarely happens but in the same time it is an important regulation to make sure the funds are used in the best way by the organization.

On the other hand, Propublica has a journalism advisory board that gathers 18 current and former editors and publishers in the most prestigious news organizations in USA, they help Propublica by advice and tips to improve the organization work which is a priceless job done on voluntary basis due to their belief in the importance of investigative journalism.

I learned so many things from this interview as it showed so many opportunities in Egypt that journalists can’t see.

There are so many funds and nongovernmental organizations in Egypt working for certain goals like fighting corruption, saving the environment, representing Islam to non Muslims, raising awareness towards women rights, fighting poverty.

Propublica example can be repeated in Egypt after localization.

For example, most newspapers administrations find it a luxury to produce a weekly or even a monthly page about Environmental issues, while most journalists working on this field focuses only on news from the governmental agencies, if there is a minimum annual funding, a well trained group of environmental journalists can start a website enabling other media outlets to republish their work if they were able to create really attractive content.

A project like this will serve environmental organizations and help in producing high quality journalism.

What I like the most about nonprofit journalism is how it can be the future model for many small media organizations and it is a very effective way to keep media from influence of financial storms.

On the other hand it is very important to keep a nonprofit organization from influence of its funding source or it will never reach financial independence at all because it will never be able to win people’s confidence.

Another danger I see threaten nonprofit journalism is to fall in the trap of turning into a public relations tool.

When Traditional Media goes into the Blogging Bussines

Are blogs in news organizations different than blogs owned by individuals? .. why a media organization needs a blog while it has its own tools to reach out to audience? Can blogging turn into a successful business model?

These questions and others were my main interest in the last 2 weeks as I went through the daily blog published by propublica.org.

Although Propublica started its blog last March, the new section achieved great success according the traffic numbers.

Propublica hired Marian Wang who is a young enthusiastic journalist who have excellent experience with new media tools in order to enable other investigative reporters to focus on their work.

By focusing on Wang’s work and with guidance from my mentor Eric Umansky who is the editor responsible for the blog posts, I understood how a media organization like Propublica can use blogging as a tool to increase online traffic.

The blog simply acts as a round up for any given big news story, by bringing the most important stories published and high quality work to readers following a certain beat.

Blogging is not just a new way for people to share their diaries and their opinions about what happens in the world but it is a very effective tool to gather people who share the same interest and provide them with a daily or a weekly post that meets their interests.

Using blogs traditional media organizations can highlight their content by referring to previous stories and reminding the readers with it, or by highlighting new stories that might not be attractive enough for readers who didn’t click the headlines.

Culture of sharing

The best thing about blogging is that a blogger should practice the culture of sharing and using open web sources with his readers, there is no problem for a blogger in a media organization to post links out of his news organization, he can even refer to videos or podcasts created by some amateurs.

Blogging forces the media organizations to be more loyal to their audience by offering them the best around the web which is a drastic change in the old policy when newspapers and TV channels were competing to mark every story as exclusive.

The great concept of blogging can help many media organizations in Egypt including news websites where I used to work to develop their contents where blogs for long time was understood as space for biased opinions.

Great panel

In relation to blogging, I was fortunate enough last week to attend a panel organized by the Asian American Journalists Association in City University in New York.

Five female professional bloggers formed the panel to discuss one title “To blog or not to blog? That is the question”.

The Five bloggers told the audience about how they started as amateur bloggers and turned later into professional ones.

Blogging can be profitable in a way that allows a blogger to be independent and to work only on his blog relying on advertisements.

The five success stories were totally different and diverse, however it was easy for the audience to notice the common elements in every story.

Blogging needs commitment and time to gain success and I was inspired to start my own blog after returning back home in Arabic language.

Paying the Price of Democracy

During the last 2 weeks, I had a different experience in my journey to learn techniques of investigative journalism.

I joined a team of propublica journalists who investigate problems happened to home owners who had Chinese drywall in their houses.

Although my role in the team is minor, it is enough to notice what is happening and how the journalists play their role as watchdogs for the whole society.

The first thing I learned is to form a timeline for the whole crisis that hit American home owners in more than 13 states.

The great thing about forming timelines in investigative journalism that its role in not only to tell the readers what happened in a chronicle order as I used to do when I was in Cairo but also to find out as many details as possible about which governmental agency moved before the other and after how long time they put their plans into action.

The timeline reveals too the actions made by victims or civil society organizations and it gives the audience and the journalist the ability to judge and evaluate how is responsible for any crisis and which factors affected and when was the time of involvement of everyone.

It was a great chance for me to learn how the freedom of information act can be implemented as my colleagues managed in getting all the governmental documents related to the angle of their investigation including official mail between different agencies.

In addition to the official documents, the research power of investigative journalism enabled the team to have all media clips published about the same issue since the beginning of the crisis using searching software.

After collecting all this material journalists like me and my colleagues “had to pay the price of democracy” as I said in my own words to my colleagues.

We found ourselves facing at least 20,000 page of documents related to the crisis, and we had to set some targets to determine what type of information we need from these documents.

My main task in the last 2 weeks was to go through these documents, highlight information and to make suggestions on what can help us reach better results.

After weeks of work I told my colleagues my joke “ I hate democracy, because in some cases when democracy is not there a journalist will be very satisfied to publish a one page press release from a governmental officer about any issue, while knowing that this is the best amount of information he can get”.

Seriously, having laws that allow people to know all information available for governmental officials is a huge responsibility on American journalists and it simply means that they have no excuse to stop producing investigative journalism whatever factors affecting the industry.

And it means that journalists in many countries around the world have to fight to get the same right for the sake of the public.

Lessons Behind Pulitzer and Magnetar

I was lucky enough to join propublica.org in the second week of April, this week in particular witnessed 2 important events in the history of this nonprofit organization.

The first event was publishing of the Magnetar story under the title “The Magnetar Trade: How One Hedge Fund Helped Keep the Bubble Going”, this financial story which was produced after cooperation with NPR radio helped Propublica to get thousands of hits, it revealed some harmful practices by hedge funds just 10 days before the Goldman Sachs scandal, the story made record numbers of clicks on the website.

The second event was winning the Pulitzer Prize by Sheri Fink for her story “Deadly Choices at Memorial”.

These 2 events really affected me in my first week in Propublica, first of all I had the chance to read a draft of the final story before it was edited many times.

It was clear for me how the editor wanted the story to be focusing on facts and empty from opinions and how it was important to use certain words in the text to avoid accusing the hedge fund with wrong doing which might cause legal problems.
The first lesson I learned 2 days after publishing the story was how to prepare a follow up story for a big one with several feedback.

I was fortunate enough to attend the follow up meeting .. I didn’t participate in this meeting by expressing my opinions, however I preferred to concentrate and watch how the editor in cheif and the managing editor are acting and what kind of discussions they had with Eric Umansky the story editor and Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein the reporters who wrote the story.

I admired the chief editor attitude, he doesn’t speak a lot, he watches the whole meeting and he commented 3 times only, every comment was adding to the conversation new aspect, he didn’t give orders, he asked questions as “can we do so? or can we check that” or comments like “ usually this happens” and “are you readyto deal with that”, a very successful approach to add to the conversation while leaving the lead to the managing editor.

One important follow up story was answering the readers’ questions and discussing comments, I was assigned by Amanda Michelle the Editor of Distributed Reporting to collect all the feedback on the story in social media and websites that published the story.

After collecting the feedback which was in the form of questions and comments , the reporters had the chance to write a new story under the title “Your Magnetar Questions, Answered” after using the questions and comments that we collected.

The second lesson I learned in Propublica is the importance of good atmosphere for success.

Happiness and joy were in the newsroom as Fink won her Pulitzer, all editors and reporters gathered for a very short celebration in the center of the newsroom.

I learned that when one journalist won something it is not a personal prize but a great recognition for the newsroom efforts, although other propublicans were finalists in other categories of Pulitzer Fink’s prize were enough to make everyone happy .. I think it is a very important factor for success to make sure all journalists in the newsroom are focusing on their job they should feel secure and there should be no tensions or negative internal competition between reporters and editors to get more published space.

During my work in different printed newspapers in Cairo I always noticed how internal tensions waste energy and distract journalists from doing their job for the sake of the public.

I will remember this lesson to take it back with me to Egypt specially when I have the chance to get managerial role in the newsroom.